Just a passing thought I had today while waiting in line for my sandwich.
I certainly get the idea behind wearing a thong in order to eliminate panty lines. I even SORT OF believe people who say that thongs are comfortable, though in my heart of hearts I suspect they're "comfortable" in the same way that that people say that high heels are comfortable -- that is, not COMFORTABLE, but, you know, bearable once you get used to it, or surprisingly not as UNcomfortable as you would expect, and because they've learned how to bear it and don't really want to own up that they're making themselves uncomfortable for fashion, they perpetuate this worldwide culty party line that high heels/thongs are like a summer breeze against your skin. I have attempted the thong a few times and I'll admit that it's not my scene. It made me crazy after like five minutes. So I live with panty lines, which I have various strategies for minimizing but which I'm sure make an appearance now and then. I like my underpants to cover my whole ass. Deal with it, people of earth!
(Which is not, by the way, to insinuate that people who wear thongs are vain and I'm not -- I'm plenty vain about some things, as I suppose most people are, it's just that in this case the ratio of uncomfortableness to vanity benefit is not sufficiently low [high? stupid ratios, I hate you] for my taste.)
But the thing I personally find unattractive, and I had an eyeful of this while in the sandwich line, is the opposite: when it's very apparent that someone is wearing a thong because the bottom half of their pants seat is inside their butt. I see this SO OFTEN, and quite frankly I find it FAR more unappealing than panty lines. I mean, I'm only guessing that it's that way because of a thong (or because of going commando, I guess), but with the phenomenon I'm talking about it seems like it would be difficult, just volume-wise, for pants AND underwear to get all up in there. So I'm going with the thong explanation.
There is probably a hipster Internet term for this that I don't know -- ass cameltoe? -- but, well, my observations in this area are my own. I most often see it while going up the stairs of the T station in the morning, and usually with business-type trousers. Today, though, it was with jeans. JEANS.
I mean, there's a reason that underpants have a back part. It's to protect your pants from your butt. And I can see why one would override this protective mechanism in order not to have panty lines -- I really can, and if I were less squirmy and irritable while wearing a thong I probably would too. But (a) if the pants are so tight that they crawl up your arse of their own accord, perhaps wearing a thong isn't the all-encompassing solution you think it is; and (b) do JEANS really require a thong? They're made of denim! Maybe they do, I don't know. Meh! My lawn! Get off it!
I try not to snark too much about other people's clothing choices (though I don't always achieve that goal), and it's certainly not a big deal. It just crossed my mind while I was standing there awaiting my ham, brie, honey mustard, and tomato on a croissant (the most delightful sandwich of all time). So I thought I would immortalize it on the Internet. The end.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
The truth is...etc.
So, it's no secret that I have a past as a crazy X-Files fan. Well...not crazy, at least I hope not. I did some crazy shit. I had posters and action figures (hell, I still have the action figures). I read fanfic. I wrote fanfic. I went to a convention in New York to see Gillian Anderson. I may or may not have written several episode reviews and posted them online under my own name (sigh). I went to Colorado to visit a bunch of people I only knew from the Internet (which turned out to be one of the most awesome things I ever did and gave me friends that are still some of my best friends to this day, and no, we don't much talk about The X-Files anymore).
But I never did the REALLY crazy shit. I never dressed up (not that you can really dress up as an X-Files person, unless you...wear a suit, I guess). I was never one of those people who runs after celebrities trying to give them stuff that I made and receive hugs and acknowledgment in return. I also did not name my child specifically so it would have the initials TXF (more on that in a bit, perhaps).
So I'm pretty sure I'm sane. But I did expend a lot of mental and emotional energy on that show, which I tend to do with stuff, for reasons I'm not sure of -- before X-Files it was Star Trek: The Next Generation, and it goes all the way back to Annie and The Sound of Music. Anyway, whatever -- I get fixated, and for years I was fixated on X-Files and Mulder and Scully. Not to the exclusion of all else, you understand, but -- fixated. "We're not obsessed, we're focused," we used to say. Ah, weren't we adorable.
Anyway, my reason for revisiting all this now is that...I'm revisiting all this now, because they are making another X-Files movie, and Chris Carter (creator), Frank Spotnitz (producer/writer/right-hand guy), David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson all appeared at something called WonderCon, which is apparently an offshoot of ComicCon, in San Francisco over the weekend. I didn't go, but honestly if it hadn't been hugely fiscally irresponsible I might have, because -- I love those two. I love them a lot, and seeing them together at something like this would have kicked complete ass. I don't really care so much about the "trailer" that they slapped together (they're only about 2/3 done filming, as I understand it), I just care that they're excited about it, instead of pissy about it (as they were for years), and that I'm going to eventually get to see a movie with them both in it. In the spirit of this newfound fannish glow, I spent approximately 38 minutes last night watching video of the entire Q&A session that someone blessedly more obsessed than I took the time to film. And...it was awesome. It was, it was.
So I've been sort of walking around in a haze of geekery for the last couple days. This will fade again (the movie isn't coming out until July, after all), but I have to say it's got me in a retro mood. I associate the dawning of my X-Files obsession with Ireland, which is where I was (we had no computer -- I blame this). So all week I've also been thinking about Ireland, and my roommates while I was there, and Supermac's, and Galway, and Carraroe, and Arus na nGael, and I've had a Cranberries song in my head because I had a friend while there who was super into the Cranberries (not because they were Irish, as far as I can tell: just coincidence), and so forth.
So it's X-Files, Ireland, Ireland, X-Files. Mostly X-Files. How can you resist those faces?
Oh -- the lady with the kid with the TXF initials. Yeah, she was one of the questioners on the video, and, yeah. These are the kind of fans that freak me out, on a very deep level (evidenced by the fact that I had a NIGHTMARE last night about some kind of face-stealing zombie lady who in my dream was clearly this lady). She managed to reveal during the course of asking one question (a) that she was there despite the fact that her husband had just had a stroke (Audience: *horrified gasps* Lady: "Oh no, it's not like that -- he WANTED me to come!"); (b) that she had named her child so that he would have the initials "TXF"; and (c) that she had, and I'm just conjecturing here, ambushed Luke Wilson (who was in the XF episode "Bad Blood") "in Pebble Beach" and that he "says hi." Which...I mean, I can imagine how that went, and what I'm imagining isn't a leisurely golf game in which the stimulating conversation at one point naturally drifts to the coincidental fact that this lady is planning to go to WonderCon in a few days where David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson happen to be attending as well. My version involves stalking, and rushing, and OMG-ing, and hug-demanding, and so forth. I mean...whatever, I'm sure she's a nice lady, and for reasons whose surface I scratched above I'm not one to throw stones. But...I don't know. I guess it's about line-drawing, and knowing how to behave in public, and having the sense to care if people think you're insane, and life priorities, and not involving your kids in your obsessions...I mean, let's just say that if I ran into David Duchovny on a cross-country flight or something, high on my list of priorities would be CONCEALING the fact that, say, I had Sims of Mulder and Scully living in my neighborhood, not announcing it via a t-shirt. Which maybe is my problem, not hers. Like, I'll be x crazy (uh...no pun intended) but not (x + 1) crazy? Or I'll be crazy but deny it when it counts? What kind of half-assed bullshit is that? Hmm.
Anyway. Other than that, good times in X-Files land. And I was going to go see There Will Be Blood tonight (right down the street from my office), but now I think I'm too tired, lazy, and lame, and I'm going home instead. It'll be there.
BTW, am I the only who gets that Maroon 5 song in my head when I hear that title? And I don't even like Maroon 5, and I don't know any of the words other than the title. That's honestly one reason I want to hurry up and see the movie -- so I can get that goddamn song out of my head. Damn you, Maroon 5!
But I never did the REALLY crazy shit. I never dressed up (not that you can really dress up as an X-Files person, unless you...wear a suit, I guess). I was never one of those people who runs after celebrities trying to give them stuff that I made and receive hugs and acknowledgment in return. I also did not name my child specifically so it would have the initials TXF (more on that in a bit, perhaps).
So I'm pretty sure I'm sane. But I did expend a lot of mental and emotional energy on that show, which I tend to do with stuff, for reasons I'm not sure of -- before X-Files it was Star Trek: The Next Generation, and it goes all the way back to Annie and The Sound of Music. Anyway, whatever -- I get fixated, and for years I was fixated on X-Files and Mulder and Scully. Not to the exclusion of all else, you understand, but -- fixated. "We're not obsessed, we're focused," we used to say. Ah, weren't we adorable.
Anyway, my reason for revisiting all this now is that...I'm revisiting all this now, because they are making another X-Files movie, and Chris Carter (creator), Frank Spotnitz (producer/writer/right-hand guy), David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson all appeared at something called WonderCon, which is apparently an offshoot of ComicCon, in San Francisco over the weekend. I didn't go, but honestly if it hadn't been hugely fiscally irresponsible I might have, because -- I love those two. I love them a lot, and seeing them together at something like this would have kicked complete ass. I don't really care so much about the "trailer" that they slapped together (they're only about 2/3 done filming, as I understand it), I just care that they're excited about it, instead of pissy about it (as they were for years), and that I'm going to eventually get to see a movie with them both in it. In the spirit of this newfound fannish glow, I spent approximately 38 minutes last night watching video of the entire Q&A session that someone blessedly more obsessed than I took the time to film. And...it was awesome. It was, it was.
So I've been sort of walking around in a haze of geekery for the last couple days. This will fade again (the movie isn't coming out until July, after all), but I have to say it's got me in a retro mood. I associate the dawning of my X-Files obsession with Ireland, which is where I was (we had no computer -- I blame this). So all week I've also been thinking about Ireland, and my roommates while I was there, and Supermac's, and Galway, and Carraroe, and Arus na nGael, and I've had a Cranberries song in my head because I had a friend while there who was super into the Cranberries (not because they were Irish, as far as I can tell: just coincidence), and so forth.
So it's X-Files, Ireland, Ireland, X-Files. Mostly X-Files. How can you resist those faces?
Oh -- the lady with the kid with the TXF initials. Yeah, she was one of the questioners on the video, and, yeah. These are the kind of fans that freak me out, on a very deep level (evidenced by the fact that I had a NIGHTMARE last night about some kind of face-stealing zombie lady who in my dream was clearly this lady). She managed to reveal during the course of asking one question (a) that she was there despite the fact that her husband had just had a stroke (Audience: *horrified gasps* Lady: "Oh no, it's not like that -- he WANTED me to come!"); (b) that she had named her child so that he would have the initials "TXF"; and (c) that she had, and I'm just conjecturing here, ambushed Luke Wilson (who was in the XF episode "Bad Blood") "in Pebble Beach" and that he "says hi." Which...I mean, I can imagine how that went, and what I'm imagining isn't a leisurely golf game in which the stimulating conversation at one point naturally drifts to the coincidental fact that this lady is planning to go to WonderCon in a few days where David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson happen to be attending as well. My version involves stalking, and rushing, and OMG-ing, and hug-demanding, and so forth. I mean...whatever, I'm sure she's a nice lady, and for reasons whose surface I scratched above I'm not one to throw stones. But...I don't know. I guess it's about line-drawing, and knowing how to behave in public, and having the sense to care if people think you're insane, and life priorities, and not involving your kids in your obsessions...I mean, let's just say that if I ran into David Duchovny on a cross-country flight or something, high on my list of priorities would be CONCEALING the fact that, say, I had Sims of Mulder and Scully living in my neighborhood, not announcing it via a t-shirt. Which maybe is my problem, not hers. Like, I'll be x crazy (uh...no pun intended) but not (x + 1) crazy? Or I'll be crazy but deny it when it counts? What kind of half-assed bullshit is that? Hmm.
Anyway. Other than that, good times in X-Files land. And I was going to go see There Will Be Blood tonight (right down the street from my office), but now I think I'm too tired, lazy, and lame, and I'm going home instead. It'll be there.
BTW, am I the only who gets that Maroon 5 song in my head when I hear that title? And I don't even like Maroon 5, and I don't know any of the words other than the title. That's honestly one reason I want to hurry up and see the movie -- so I can get that goddamn song out of my head. Damn you, Maroon 5!
Monday, February 25, 2008
Dance Dance Revelation
(Sorry.)
I went to my sister's dance performance this weekend. She's danced all her life (ballet and modern), but she's a professional now (part-time, I mean), in a company. Every time I see her dance, it makes me think of all the other times I've seen her dance -- I've been going to her dance performances since she was, like, three (I'm 11 years older than she is). First it was just her standing in a line with other little girls pointing her foot and stuff. Then she started doing Nutcrackers, and first she was a Polichinelle (under Mother Ginger's skirt), then an angel, then a party child, then an angel in a production where the angels were young adults instead of little kids, then the soldier doll, etc. I think it was that production where she was an angel for the second time -- that was Ballet Theater of Boston -- where it suddenly hit me that she looked like a grown-up, not a little girl, on stage. It also hit me that from that distance she looked just like my grandmother, which made me teary.
Then she went to college and majored in dance and choreographed and performed in a beautiful thesis program that I just loved. And now she's back here and she's my roommate, and we goof around the house all the time and we're sort of at this new stage of our relationship in which we're peers, which is awesome. But there's nothing like seeing her dance to remind me of her as a little girl and, basically, her whole life and how I've watched her grow up.
It's funny how watching her now feels both the same as and different from all the other recitals (as we used to call them) I've been to -- sitting with my family, finding her in the program, figuring out which of the other dancers is which, recalling behind-the-scenes gripes or praises she's had about various aspects of or players in the production, waiting patiently for her to appear for the however many minutes she's onstage. Of course everything changes around her, but to my untrained eye (and she'd doubtless argue strenuously with me about this) it's all more or less the same, and to me it's her that changes, and it still amazes me that she's changed so much and that I've witnessed it right from the beginning up til now. In a weird way it's like seeing time pass before my eyes.
Anyway. Just something that crosses my mind on these occasions.
I went to my sister's dance performance this weekend. She's danced all her life (ballet and modern), but she's a professional now (part-time, I mean), in a company. Every time I see her dance, it makes me think of all the other times I've seen her dance -- I've been going to her dance performances since she was, like, three (I'm 11 years older than she is). First it was just her standing in a line with other little girls pointing her foot and stuff. Then she started doing Nutcrackers, and first she was a Polichinelle (under Mother Ginger's skirt), then an angel, then a party child, then an angel in a production where the angels were young adults instead of little kids, then the soldier doll, etc. I think it was that production where she was an angel for the second time -- that was Ballet Theater of Boston -- where it suddenly hit me that she looked like a grown-up, not a little girl, on stage. It also hit me that from that distance she looked just like my grandmother, which made me teary.
Then she went to college and majored in dance and choreographed and performed in a beautiful thesis program that I just loved. And now she's back here and she's my roommate, and we goof around the house all the time and we're sort of at this new stage of our relationship in which we're peers, which is awesome. But there's nothing like seeing her dance to remind me of her as a little girl and, basically, her whole life and how I've watched her grow up.
It's funny how watching her now feels both the same as and different from all the other recitals (as we used to call them) I've been to -- sitting with my family, finding her in the program, figuring out which of the other dancers is which, recalling behind-the-scenes gripes or praises she's had about various aspects of or players in the production, waiting patiently for her to appear for the however many minutes she's onstage. Of course everything changes around her, but to my untrained eye (and she'd doubtless argue strenuously with me about this) it's all more or less the same, and to me it's her that changes, and it still amazes me that she's changed so much and that I've witnessed it right from the beginning up til now. In a weird way it's like seeing time pass before my eyes.
Anyway. Just something that crosses my mind on these occasions.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
The terrorists win
Or...lose? One of the two.
So, after that unhealthily long rant and many others like it, I've dropped Arabic. I'm sad about it, but mostly relieved. Just after I dropped it I went and had some beers at the Queen's Head and felt all light and happy, and then later I started feeling depressed and bad for some reason. I decided that since I have hoarding tendencies (nothing dramatic -- I'm not like one of those people whose house is full of like, all the junk mail they've received since 1982 or something, plus every receipt, plus every newspaper, plus 400 ashtrays or what have you, but I do err on the side of saving crap that I should get rid of), that they're manifesting themselves in this area: I don't want to let go of Arabic, because there are parts of it I really, really enjoy. I like the prof, I like a lot of the people in the class, and when I'm not trying to figure out what the hell is going on I really enjoy physically writing the words. If somebody gave me a bunch of Arabic to just copy out in pen, I would be totally content. I also love that I can read it, sorta, and I'm always geeking out if I come across some (which happens more often than you'd imagine in my office) and trying to sound it out. (Someone sent me a link to this children's book yesterday and I got all excited because it has all the vowels! So I can read it! I don't know what it MEANS, but I can READ it. Awesome! *geek*)
Anyway. I do like Arabic, but on balance it's better for me to give it up. Just like, say, I like some of the eight-year-old t-shirts I have in my drawer (that's t-shirts that are eight years old, not t-shirts FOR eight-year-olds, just so we're clear), but I never wear them, so on balance it's better for me to give them to Planet Aid. (This is what I did this afternoon.) This is another area in which I am deficient. Grumble.
So, that's the news on that. Oscars this weekend. I don't really have anything I'm particularly pulling for this year -- the only ones of the big players I've seen are Juno and Atonement. I liked Juno, but have major issues with it that perhaps I'll get into in another post (or perhaps not: I think everybody is tired of hearing everybody else talk about their issues with Juno) (and I really did like it: this isn't one of those "I liked it, BUT I ALSO THINK IT WAS THE WORST MOVIE OF ALL TIME FOR THE FOLLOWING REASONS" deals -- let's just say the dialogue made me want to kill myself and leave it at that). And I was so-so on Atonement. I didn't dislike it, it just didn't do a whole lot for me. I'm actually surprised I didn't have stronger feelings about it, but my feelings just never got that strong. It was certainly nice to look at, and I am always a sucker for stuff about novels and fiction and life and shit (see Stranger Than Fiction, which I surprised myself by liking better than Adaptation, which was just too crackalicious for me to fully feel, I guess), and it is a pretty fantab concept for a novel (McEwan's novel, I mean). So...yay. I won't be UPSET if it wins stuff or anything. I'm just not really rooting all that hard for anything, like I was last year (was that last year?) for Pan's Labyrinth. I did discover that James McAvoy is teh hotness, ESPECIALLY when I heard him in an interview with his Scottish accent. I shall file that information away for later reflection. (No, I haven't seen The Last King of Scotland yet. I will get to it, sometime, or maybe not, because it sounds horrifying.)
There's always a "...REALLY?" nomination, too, and this year it's Surf's Up for Best Animated Feature. ...Really? OK.
Tell me this. When I select some text and click the little "italic" button -- I'm composing in the HTML editor here -- why does it do a whole bunch of font-style hoo-ha instead of just putting "i" around it (or "em," if it insists)? That just seems like too much work. For the computer. Or something like that.
So, after that unhealthily long rant and many others like it, I've dropped Arabic. I'm sad about it, but mostly relieved. Just after I dropped it I went and had some beers at the Queen's Head and felt all light and happy, and then later I started feeling depressed and bad for some reason. I decided that since I have hoarding tendencies (nothing dramatic -- I'm not like one of those people whose house is full of like, all the junk mail they've received since 1982 or something, plus every receipt, plus every newspaper, plus 400 ashtrays or what have you, but I do err on the side of saving crap that I should get rid of), that they're manifesting themselves in this area: I don't want to let go of Arabic, because there are parts of it I really, really enjoy. I like the prof, I like a lot of the people in the class, and when I'm not trying to figure out what the hell is going on I really enjoy physically writing the words. If somebody gave me a bunch of Arabic to just copy out in pen, I would be totally content. I also love that I can read it, sorta, and I'm always geeking out if I come across some (which happens more often than you'd imagine in my office) and trying to sound it out. (Someone sent me a link to this children's book yesterday and I got all excited because it has all the vowels! So I can read it! I don't know what it MEANS, but I can READ it. Awesome! *geek*)
Anyway. I do like Arabic, but on balance it's better for me to give it up. Just like, say, I like some of the eight-year-old t-shirts I have in my drawer (that's t-shirts that are eight years old, not t-shirts FOR eight-year-olds, just so we're clear), but I never wear them, so on balance it's better for me to give them to Planet Aid. (This is what I did this afternoon.) This is another area in which I am deficient. Grumble.
So, that's the news on that. Oscars this weekend. I don't really have anything I'm particularly pulling for this year -- the only ones of the big players I've seen are Juno and Atonement. I liked Juno, but have major issues with it that perhaps I'll get into in another post (or perhaps not: I think everybody is tired of hearing everybody else talk about their issues with Juno) (and I really did like it: this isn't one of those "I liked it, BUT I ALSO THINK IT WAS THE WORST MOVIE OF ALL TIME FOR THE FOLLOWING REASONS" deals -- let's just say the dialogue made me want to kill myself and leave it at that). And I was so-so on Atonement. I didn't dislike it, it just didn't do a whole lot for me. I'm actually surprised I didn't have stronger feelings about it, but my feelings just never got that strong. It was certainly nice to look at, and I am always a sucker for stuff about novels and fiction and life and shit (see Stranger Than Fiction, which I surprised myself by liking better than Adaptation, which was just too crackalicious for me to fully feel, I guess), and it is a pretty fantab concept for a novel (McEwan's novel, I mean). So...yay. I won't be UPSET if it wins stuff or anything. I'm just not really rooting all that hard for anything, like I was last year (was that last year?) for Pan's Labyrinth. I did discover that James McAvoy is teh hotness, ESPECIALLY when I heard him in an interview with his Scottish accent. I shall file that information away for later reflection. (No, I haven't seen The Last King of Scotland yet. I will get to it, sometime, or maybe not, because it sounds horrifying.)
There's always a "...REALLY?" nomination, too, and this year it's Surf's Up for Best Animated Feature. ...Really? OK.
Tell me this. When I select some text and click the little "italic" button -- I'm composing in the HTML editor here -- why does it do a whole bunch of font-style hoo-ha instead of just putting "i" around it (or "em," if it insists)? That just seems like too much work. For the computer. Or something like that.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Arabic, the first of many, I imagine
Right, so, I'm back again. Already. To complain about my Arabic book, which I suspect will be a RECURRING theme if I keep this thing up at all. Basically, I'm taking Arabic for fun, because my job allows me to take classes for essentially free, and I like exercising my brain, and I love languages. There are always more languages I want to take. Basically, any language that crosses my path, I get all itchy to take it. I took Arabic last semester, and it was hard but fun -- mostly we were learning letters, and we practiced writing and also learned an assload of vocabulary while we were at it, but that's OK. Also, the book was very coy with the vocabulary -- the theory seemed to be that, like, if you had to figure it out a little it would help you learn it, or retain it, or something. So it would make you match the words to pictures and what have you instead of just giving you a list of English words and Arabic words. To me, this is total bullshit -- the way I see it, it's going to take work to memorize this vocab anyway, so give me the goddamn list and let me get to work on memorizing it (and I did spend QUITE a bit of time sitting around and MEMORIZING like I haven't had to do since Latin -- which, you know, was hard work, but I did it) instead of making me go on a treasure hunt for it and THEN memorize it. The upshot of all this was, I got an antagonistic feeling towards the book that was fairly unpleasant, and I spent a good deal of time complaining about it. But I managed to hunt down all the vocabulary words, and memorized them, and got an A in the class, thank you very much.
So now it's second semester, and we now know all the letters. And basically, once that happened, this book went hardcore on me. Now, whenever they introduce a grammatical concept, they tell you what it is in Arabic -- and in Arabic letters -- and refer to it by that name throughout. I'm talking stuff like "masculine" and "feminine" and "subject" and "predicate" and stuff like that. The other thing is, in Arabic, as in all (?) Semitic languages, the short vowels aren't part of the word. For learners and small children, the vowels are put in so you can read it and know how to pronounce it (and I believe this is also the case in religious texts, so there'll be no ambiguity), but in everyday Arabic text, there are no short vowels. So, we see a word. If we're lucky, it's vowelled. Then the next time it occurs in the book, it's not vowelled, so we'd better have memorized it, or else we're not going to know what the hell it is. Whether these words are in the glossary at the back of the book is also a crapshoot.
I am good at languages. I love languages. I learn languages for fun -- hell, I'm doing that right now. I was the kid in middle-school French class who did all the exercises in the workbook ahead of time because I was too excited to wait until we got to them. And I am so frustrated with this Arabic book that I'm on the point of quitting the class, and have been for weeks (the stupid bookstore ran out of the book and so I had no book for the first two weeks of class -- last week, the third week, was first class for which I had the book and had some idea of what was going on AND perhaps not coincidentally the first class during which I didn't feel like I was going to cry at some point). There's a list of vocabulary in the first chapter that we're supposed to have memorized. (This is extra vocabulary. In this book, there's a short video for every chapter, and vocab pertaining to that video is, THANKFULLY, presented in a sane fashion with the English words and the Arabic words next to each other, and even the vowels; this list is just a bunch of other words not related to the video.) There are 18 words, and they're only in Arabic. Some of them have the vowels; some don't. Now, many of the words, I found on further inspection after my initial rush of despair, are scattered throughout the chapter. Other ones aren't, and some of those aren't in the glossary. So I still haven't memorized all those words, because I don't even know what half of them are.
This is only one example of the idiocy of this book. (By the way, do feel free to read the reviews at Amazon.com. And no, none of them are me.) It seems to DELIGHT in keeping us off balance. For the current drill that I'm doing, which is the one I have to write out (in Arabic and translated into English) and hand in, there are 10 sentences, and in at least 7 of them there's at least one word that I don't know and can't find in the glossary. I can't really sound out these words -- because they aren't vowelled -- so I can't even be certain what it IS while I'm trying to figure out if I know it or not. There's one word that I managed to look up in the glossary that seems to mean "have," but there's some vague thing about how it really means "at" or something. According to the glossary, this word is covered in Chapter 7. (We're on Chapter 2.) I flipped to Chapter 7 and tried to figure out the deal with this word, as well as I could from the little English that was there, and I made some progress but I couldn't figure out what the various endings meant (it seems to be both a verb and a preposition, somehow -- it's got something to do with the possessive -- naturally we haven't learned anything logical like a list of case endings or anything like that). Yet I have to translate it, add the vowels (WE are expected to be able to reproduce all the vowels, of course, even though the book never does), and figure out what the missing words are in the sentence. And hand it in.
This book is HUGE on trying to get you to learn stuff from context. It loves to give you, like, a newspaper page in Arabic and ask you vague questions like if you can tell what's going on and where you think the newspaper might be from and bullshit like that. It LOVES to give you some long thing of a guy talking and then poke you for stuff like, "What do you think [X word] might mean?" I am not opposed to this kind of stuff, generally -- I like detectiving around with languages; in fact I used to spend hours translating lyrics in Irish (before I learned Irish) with my little Foclóir Póca and trying to figure out what they were saying. I got The Wizard of Oz in French and tried reading it in seventh grade. But I need SOME foundational stuff in order to GET to a place where I can do that. If every other word is a word that I've never heard of, that I was introduced to once three chapters ago and am expected to remember without vowels/the ability to sound it out, that is a name, that is some Anglicized word (the book also loves to be cute with stuff like this -- we're always running into words like "Loos Angeelees" that we're supposed to be all excited about recognizing, and it certainly is nice to see one that you don't have to go look up in the back, but when I run into something like "feelm" and it's not in the glossary and I THINK they mean "film" but I don't KNOW and I don't know if there are any more VOWELS that I can't see because they're not there (which means it could be "feelum" or "feelam" or "feelim" or even "fayoolm" or something, because the "ee" can also be a "y"), IT'S REALLY FRUSTRATING, and my book is full of question marks and arrows and hypothetical translations and I JUST WANT TO LEARN ARABIC, GODDAMNIT, and I just get so, so, so frustrated every single time I sit down to do my homework because it's like the book DOESN'T WANT ME TO. Instead of teaching me, it wants to haze me and make me prove that I'm tough enough to learn from it. It wants me to know that it's a big bad world out there, man, a world where you'll run into words you don't know, and sometimes they might be proper nouns because Arabic doesn't have upper- and lowercase, and also you sure ain't going to be coddled by getting your short vowels handed to you all the time, and you know what? I FUCKING KNOW THAT, DUDE, I GET IT, so when I run around the streets of Beiruit trying to read shit all over the place (which I'm actually not going to be doing because I AM LEARNING THIS LANGUAGE FOR FUN BECAUSE I LIKE LANGUAGES, not because I want to go to Beiruit and talk to people, which I wouldn't be able to do anyway because this is Modern Standard Arabic and nobody actually speaks it except for newscasters), and I run into proper nouns that I'm unfamiliar with and have to figure out from context and unvowelled words that I don't know, I PROMISE that I won't sit down in the middle of the street and cry because I was unprepared for this harsh reality. BUT FOR NOW, FOR NOW, when you're telling me a word I might or might not know, EVEN IF I may have run into it once before, WOULD YOU PLEASE do me the courtesy of PUTTING IN THE FUCKING VOWELS so I can tell what the word IS? And maybe not give me a tricky connector word OF SOME SORT that won't be introduced for five more chapters in the exercise that I'm supposed to translate? And maybe not force me to sound out unvowelled, unfamiliar Arabic words while I'm trying to READ AN EXPLANATION OF A TRICKY POINT OF ARABIC GRAMMAR? UGH. I just get SO AGGRAVATED every time I sit down to do homework, and that means I avoid doing homework, which means I stay up too late, which means I don't get enough sleep and am tired all week, including in Arabic class, which means I then put it off again, which means I get frustrated again when I sit down with what I think are fresh eyes and a fresh attitude because it FUCKING SUCKS. This is the worst book EVER. A book that can make ME hate learning a language is SKILLED INDEED. I am not fucking kidding. I can't even IMAGINE if there's somebody taking this class because they're majoring in international law or something and they're NOT a language geek.
By the way, this book has at least one writer credited with an Anglo name, it's published out of Georgetown University, and all the video drama takes place in the U.S. It's geared towards English speakers. It's not like I accidentally intercepted some hastily translated thing that was designed for astronauts or something. (My Irish book was like that -- it was written for, as far as I can tell, Irish first-graders in the '40s. But that book was fine because it was logically organized.)
Anyway, as ALWAYS happens, I'm here bitching about Arabic instead of DOING Arabic, and if I'd used this time to do it instead of bitch about it I might be done by now. But I don't want to do it. I don't want to drop it, because I'll feel like a quitter and I'll be sad that everybody else in class is still doing it. And I want to be able to say I took a full year of it, and I'm mad at myself for not being able to blow through it like I usually can. It kills me because I WANT to learn it. I just don't want to have to learn it from this book. (But this is, apparently, the only Arabic book out there.)
I'm not afraid of hard work. I'm not afraid of memorizing. I don't need friendly talking vegetables or videogames or sexy teenagers being cool or whatever to trick me into learning. I want to learn. This book just beats me down at every turn.
So, now it's 11:30 and I've succeeded in pissing away the rest of the evening during which I was supposed to be doing Arabic. I've got one more evening, tomorrow, to finish. Oh, I'm also supposed to be memorizing a poem. Sigh.
Um, I promise all my blog posts won't be this ranty. Oy.
So now it's second semester, and we now know all the letters. And basically, once that happened, this book went hardcore on me. Now, whenever they introduce a grammatical concept, they tell you what it is in Arabic -- and in Arabic letters -- and refer to it by that name throughout. I'm talking stuff like "masculine" and "feminine" and "subject" and "predicate" and stuff like that. The other thing is, in Arabic, as in all (?) Semitic languages, the short vowels aren't part of the word. For learners and small children, the vowels are put in so you can read it and know how to pronounce it (and I believe this is also the case in religious texts, so there'll be no ambiguity), but in everyday Arabic text, there are no short vowels. So, we see a word. If we're lucky, it's vowelled. Then the next time it occurs in the book, it's not vowelled, so we'd better have memorized it, or else we're not going to know what the hell it is. Whether these words are in the glossary at the back of the book is also a crapshoot.
I am good at languages. I love languages. I learn languages for fun -- hell, I'm doing that right now. I was the kid in middle-school French class who did all the exercises in the workbook ahead of time because I was too excited to wait until we got to them. And I am so frustrated with this Arabic book that I'm on the point of quitting the class, and have been for weeks (the stupid bookstore ran out of the book and so I had no book for the first two weeks of class -- last week, the third week, was first class for which I had the book and had some idea of what was going on AND perhaps not coincidentally the first class during which I didn't feel like I was going to cry at some point). There's a list of vocabulary in the first chapter that we're supposed to have memorized. (This is extra vocabulary. In this book, there's a short video for every chapter, and vocab pertaining to that video is, THANKFULLY, presented in a sane fashion with the English words and the Arabic words next to each other, and even the vowels; this list is just a bunch of other words not related to the video.) There are 18 words, and they're only in Arabic. Some of them have the vowels; some don't. Now, many of the words, I found on further inspection after my initial rush of despair, are scattered throughout the chapter. Other ones aren't, and some of those aren't in the glossary. So I still haven't memorized all those words, because I don't even know what half of them are.
This is only one example of the idiocy of this book. (By the way, do feel free to read the reviews at Amazon.com. And no, none of them are me.) It seems to DELIGHT in keeping us off balance. For the current drill that I'm doing, which is the one I have to write out (in Arabic and translated into English) and hand in, there are 10 sentences, and in at least 7 of them there's at least one word that I don't know and can't find in the glossary. I can't really sound out these words -- because they aren't vowelled -- so I can't even be certain what it IS while I'm trying to figure out if I know it or not. There's one word that I managed to look up in the glossary that seems to mean "have," but there's some vague thing about how it really means "at" or something. According to the glossary, this word is covered in Chapter 7. (We're on Chapter 2.) I flipped to Chapter 7 and tried to figure out the deal with this word, as well as I could from the little English that was there, and I made some progress but I couldn't figure out what the various endings meant (it seems to be both a verb and a preposition, somehow -- it's got something to do with the possessive -- naturally we haven't learned anything logical like a list of case endings or anything like that). Yet I have to translate it, add the vowels (WE are expected to be able to reproduce all the vowels, of course, even though the book never does), and figure out what the missing words are in the sentence. And hand it in.
This book is HUGE on trying to get you to learn stuff from context. It loves to give you, like, a newspaper page in Arabic and ask you vague questions like if you can tell what's going on and where you think the newspaper might be from and bullshit like that. It LOVES to give you some long thing of a guy talking and then poke you for stuff like, "What do you think [X word] might mean?" I am not opposed to this kind of stuff, generally -- I like detectiving around with languages; in fact I used to spend hours translating lyrics in Irish (before I learned Irish) with my little Foclóir Póca and trying to figure out what they were saying. I got The Wizard of Oz in French and tried reading it in seventh grade. But I need SOME foundational stuff in order to GET to a place where I can do that. If every other word is a word that I've never heard of, that I was introduced to once three chapters ago and am expected to remember without vowels/the ability to sound it out, that is a name, that is some Anglicized word (the book also loves to be cute with stuff like this -- we're always running into words like "Loos Angeelees" that we're supposed to be all excited about recognizing, and it certainly is nice to see one that you don't have to go look up in the back, but when I run into something like "feelm" and it's not in the glossary and I THINK they mean "film" but I don't KNOW and I don't know if there are any more VOWELS that I can't see because they're not there (which means it could be "feelum" or "feelam" or "feelim" or even "fayoolm" or something, because the "ee" can also be a "y"), IT'S REALLY FRUSTRATING, and my book is full of question marks and arrows and hypothetical translations and I JUST WANT TO LEARN ARABIC, GODDAMNIT, and I just get so, so, so frustrated every single time I sit down to do my homework because it's like the book DOESN'T WANT ME TO. Instead of teaching me, it wants to haze me and make me prove that I'm tough enough to learn from it. It wants me to know that it's a big bad world out there, man, a world where you'll run into words you don't know, and sometimes they might be proper nouns because Arabic doesn't have upper- and lowercase, and also you sure ain't going to be coddled by getting your short vowels handed to you all the time, and you know what? I FUCKING KNOW THAT, DUDE, I GET IT, so when I run around the streets of Beiruit trying to read shit all over the place (which I'm actually not going to be doing because I AM LEARNING THIS LANGUAGE FOR FUN BECAUSE I LIKE LANGUAGES, not because I want to go to Beiruit and talk to people, which I wouldn't be able to do anyway because this is Modern Standard Arabic and nobody actually speaks it except for newscasters), and I run into proper nouns that I'm unfamiliar with and have to figure out from context and unvowelled words that I don't know, I PROMISE that I won't sit down in the middle of the street and cry because I was unprepared for this harsh reality. BUT FOR NOW, FOR NOW, when you're telling me a word I might or might not know, EVEN IF I may have run into it once before, WOULD YOU PLEASE do me the courtesy of PUTTING IN THE FUCKING VOWELS so I can tell what the word IS? And maybe not give me a tricky connector word OF SOME SORT that won't be introduced for five more chapters in the exercise that I'm supposed to translate? And maybe not force me to sound out unvowelled, unfamiliar Arabic words while I'm trying to READ AN EXPLANATION OF A TRICKY POINT OF ARABIC GRAMMAR? UGH. I just get SO AGGRAVATED every time I sit down to do homework, and that means I avoid doing homework, which means I stay up too late, which means I don't get enough sleep and am tired all week, including in Arabic class, which means I then put it off again, which means I get frustrated again when I sit down with what I think are fresh eyes and a fresh attitude because it FUCKING SUCKS. This is the worst book EVER. A book that can make ME hate learning a language is SKILLED INDEED. I am not fucking kidding. I can't even IMAGINE if there's somebody taking this class because they're majoring in international law or something and they're NOT a language geek.
By the way, this book has at least one writer credited with an Anglo name, it's published out of Georgetown University, and all the video drama takes place in the U.S. It's geared towards English speakers. It's not like I accidentally intercepted some hastily translated thing that was designed for astronauts or something. (My Irish book was like that -- it was written for, as far as I can tell, Irish first-graders in the '40s. But that book was fine because it was logically organized.)
Anyway, as ALWAYS happens, I'm here bitching about Arabic instead of DOING Arabic, and if I'd used this time to do it instead of bitch about it I might be done by now. But I don't want to do it. I don't want to drop it, because I'll feel like a quitter and I'll be sad that everybody else in class is still doing it. And I want to be able to say I took a full year of it, and I'm mad at myself for not being able to blow through it like I usually can. It kills me because I WANT to learn it. I just don't want to have to learn it from this book. (But this is, apparently, the only Arabic book out there.)
I'm not afraid of hard work. I'm not afraid of memorizing. I don't need friendly talking vegetables or videogames or sexy teenagers being cool or whatever to trick me into learning. I want to learn. This book just beats me down at every turn.
So, now it's 11:30 and I've succeeded in pissing away the rest of the evening during which I was supposed to be doing Arabic. I've got one more evening, tomorrow, to finish. Oh, I'm also supposed to be memorizing a poem. Sigh.
Um, I promise all my blog posts won't be this ranty. Oy.
blog? blog.
Well, I guess I've got a blog. Heh. I feel sort of like a kid who said "I want to sing on stage!" and somebody said "OK" and gave him a microphone and shoved him out on a stage and then he didn't know what to do and wasn't really expecting it to be that easy and wasn't really prepared for it. And, probably, that kid started crying and maybe peed his pants and then ran away and hid in a closet. I won't do that, but I do feel a little weird now, like I've got to start typing something profound. And the reason I started a blog today is that it was 60 degrees out, and crazy unexpected warm weather always makes me a little nutty and gives me the feeling that I should DO SOMETHING AWESOME, and what that usually means to me is go write something, and I always get the urge to sit down and crank out the great American novel, and that rarely happens. (hee) Basically, it makes me want to grab onto it and hold it and not let it escape. Not so much the day itself, or even the weather, but the feeling it gives me, which is one of glorious and heart-quickening POTENTIAL. This potential is never actually realized, but it sure is an exhilarating feeling, like every door in the world is opening up and all I have to do is walk through, and I will, any second. It never lasts, and I long, LONG ago learned that if you start a story in that kind of fever of creative excitement, it doesn't really go any faster or better than any other story (except maybe that it gets you off your ass to start writing it, which is half the battle, in my experience).
I've often thought specifically that I should NOT have a blog, because when I do get the fire under me to write, I feel I should try to write a story, not just ramble until I'm spent. But, I'd rather ramble than watch TV or something instead, and then there's that age-old dilemma of whether I should be MAKING myself write a story and turning it into a guilt thing, so, on the assumption that writing something is better than writing nothing, I thought it was time to start one of these dealies. And, I mean, I don't expect to be sitting around waiting for inspiration from the heavens to post something about what I had for dinner or whatever. But it seemed a good moment to do it. Also, it's probably a better idea than buying a laptop on eBay, which is what I did one of the last times I had this "supernatural productivity is JUST AROUND THE CORNER!" feeling. Not that that wasn't a good deal, because it was, man.
I'm not sure what I'll write in this (if, you know, anything, ever again). One of the first things you're supposed to think about when writing a story is whom you're writing for -- what do they know, what do they not know, what do you need to explain, what's the purpose of their reading it, etc. And I have no idea who's going to read this -- my friends, I guess, but am I going to be avoiding topics that I don't want certain people to hear about, and if so, who are those people? I'm not going to be dropping first, middle and last names of all my family members and ruminating over the possible astrological meanings of my social security number, but I also feel a little goofy making up pseudonyms for people, because I find it so awkward and overly precious when I'm reading someone's blog and they're all, "Batman Jr., Gordon Lightfoot's Tax Advisor, Biff, Coupon Fiend, and Hungry Like The Wolf all came over for pizza, and we watched Grey's Anatomy." Sometimes it's even worse if they're like, "My sister, Gordon Lightfoot's Tax Advisor." But then I also get irritated with stuff like "I went out to dinner with The Boy" (barf, as a matter of fact -- but I don't currently have A Boy so I won't run into that one, at least), or if your name is AnimePrincess and you describe your significant other as "Mr. AnimePrincess" and your kid as "Baby AnimePrincess," that can get old too. But, I mean, what are you supposed to do, really? You have to refer to them SOMEHOW. I'll probably just be lame and refer to people by their initials or something.
Anyway, I got off track. Do I describe myself? Do I want to describe myself? Do I dedicate a post to explaining What Is The Deal With Me? It feels sort of presumptuous to just like, start writing, but it would feel even MORE presumptuous to do a whole "let's meet ME!!" thing that I'd probably shy away from anyway because, you know, it behooves us to be at least SOMEWHAT paranoid when dealing with Teh Internets, I guess, even though thinking up a whole pseudonym seems a bit '90s. (Back when I posted all the time WITHOUT thinking up a pseudonym. Slow? Me? Never.) Not that I really expect random Internet people to be popping in here, and even less that they would STAY if they fell in here by mistake, but, you never know, I suppose.
Soooooo, yes, my biggest issue with this blog is probably going to be that I write super long everything. I apologize in advance, any hypothetical people who are actually going to be reading this.
Uh, so, yeah. Perhaps I will spend some time discussing the meaning of life and other matters of import, but this will probably end up being mostly me ranting about something I saw on TV or something, for such is my life. It's getting dark now, and that creative fever is ebbing, and I want some dinner and I really, really have to do some homework. By the way, there's no particular significance to the name of this thing -- I just like tea, and I like robots. And it kind of sounds like "tea and crumpets," which is also nice. And the idea of robots drinking tea is pleasing. I'm kind of annoyed that I chose the "dots" template, because the dots are already irritating me; I mostly chose it for the fonts. I know I can adjust everything, so I'll tinker with it sometime, I suppose. I also like the sample "labels for this post" next to the label bar: scooters, vacation, fall. That sounds like a good time.
I've often thought specifically that I should NOT have a blog, because when I do get the fire under me to write, I feel I should try to write a story, not just ramble until I'm spent. But, I'd rather ramble than watch TV or something instead, and then there's that age-old dilemma of whether I should be MAKING myself write a story and turning it into a guilt thing, so, on the assumption that writing something is better than writing nothing, I thought it was time to start one of these dealies. And, I mean, I don't expect to be sitting around waiting for inspiration from the heavens to post something about what I had for dinner or whatever. But it seemed a good moment to do it. Also, it's probably a better idea than buying a laptop on eBay, which is what I did one of the last times I had this "supernatural productivity is JUST AROUND THE CORNER!" feeling. Not that that wasn't a good deal, because it was, man.
I'm not sure what I'll write in this (if, you know, anything, ever again). One of the first things you're supposed to think about when writing a story is whom you're writing for -- what do they know, what do they not know, what do you need to explain, what's the purpose of their reading it, etc. And I have no idea who's going to read this -- my friends, I guess, but am I going to be avoiding topics that I don't want certain people to hear about, and if so, who are those people? I'm not going to be dropping first, middle and last names of all my family members and ruminating over the possible astrological meanings of my social security number, but I also feel a little goofy making up pseudonyms for people, because I find it so awkward and overly precious when I'm reading someone's blog and they're all, "Batman Jr., Gordon Lightfoot's Tax Advisor, Biff, Coupon Fiend, and Hungry Like The Wolf all came over for pizza, and we watched Grey's Anatomy." Sometimes it's even worse if they're like, "My sister, Gordon Lightfoot's Tax Advisor." But then I also get irritated with stuff like "I went out to dinner with The Boy" (barf, as a matter of fact -- but I don't currently have A Boy so I won't run into that one, at least), or if your name is AnimePrincess and you describe your significant other as "Mr. AnimePrincess" and your kid as "Baby AnimePrincess," that can get old too. But, I mean, what are you supposed to do, really? You have to refer to them SOMEHOW. I'll probably just be lame and refer to people by their initials or something.
Anyway, I got off track. Do I describe myself? Do I want to describe myself? Do I dedicate a post to explaining What Is The Deal With Me? It feels sort of presumptuous to just like, start writing, but it would feel even MORE presumptuous to do a whole "let's meet ME!!" thing that I'd probably shy away from anyway because, you know, it behooves us to be at least SOMEWHAT paranoid when dealing with Teh Internets, I guess, even though thinking up a whole pseudonym seems a bit '90s. (Back when I posted all the time WITHOUT thinking up a pseudonym. Slow? Me? Never.) Not that I really expect random Internet people to be popping in here, and even less that they would STAY if they fell in here by mistake, but, you never know, I suppose.
Soooooo, yes, my biggest issue with this blog is probably going to be that I write super long everything. I apologize in advance, any hypothetical people who are actually going to be reading this.
Uh, so, yeah. Perhaps I will spend some time discussing the meaning of life and other matters of import, but this will probably end up being mostly me ranting about something I saw on TV or something, for such is my life. It's getting dark now, and that creative fever is ebbing, and I want some dinner and I really, really have to do some homework. By the way, there's no particular significance to the name of this thing -- I just like tea, and I like robots. And it kind of sounds like "tea and crumpets," which is also nice. And the idea of robots drinking tea is pleasing. I'm kind of annoyed that I chose the "dots" template, because the dots are already irritating me; I mostly chose it for the fonts. I know I can adjust everything, so I'll tinker with it sometime, I suppose. I also like the sample "labels for this post" next to the label bar: scooters, vacation, fall. That sounds like a good time.
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